The Business Travel Magazine April/May 2019

Rail travel / Spend management
“Rail is managed quite well,” she says.
“Behaviour is managed through exception
reporting, highlighting travellers who
regularly book outside policy.” The company
is also mindful of short-notice customer
meetings or business-critical meetings that
can’t be changed and advises that the policy
should add flexibility in these circumstances.
So what are the 28 train operators doing
to help buyers manage rail spend better?
The launch of the 26-30-year-old rail card
has been good news over the last 12
months and TMCs are busy identifying the
age of travellers to see who is eligible as a
one-third reduction in cost – even taking
into account the £30 upfront cost of the
card – still results in savings. Exploiting the
16-25 railcard, the 60+ senior rail card and
even the 2 Together cards is also lucrative.
Corporate fares do exist, but generally for
those businesses with significant volumes
and usually only on the long-distance and
intercity routes. Corporates regularly using
the London-Scotland route will have more
leverage than a corporate only booking
short-haul, for example.
Smart buyers must find routes serviced by
multiple competitors to get a deal as the
principle of supply and demand applies.
On London-Birmingham, for example,
Virgin Trains, Chiltern and London
Northwestern Rail operate so offering to
switch market share would bear fruit. But on
the Bristol-London route, serviced by Great
Western and with no air alternative, a deal is
much less likely.
Some operators are happier to dish out
soft perks such as free wifi access,
discounted car parking or F&B vouchers
rather than looking at fare discounts.
Hilti’s Gibson says: “Buyers need to be
aware of not just rail spend but any spend
which goes to air which could be switched
to rail. For example, don’t just look at
Manchester to London Euston rail volumes,
but also Manchester to London Heathrow
air travel and take this whole amount of
travel into the discussions.
“Be mindful of what you as a company can
implement and what the policy allows.
Route deals can be on peak trains but if the
policy suggests off-peak only, then this
offering would not be suitable.” This is
when a clearly worded travel policy
comes into its own, for both suppliers
and travellers.
As a general rule, Gibson believes
rail operators are less proactive
Another source of
savings is processing
refunds if trains are delayed,
as this is finally being
automated and has become
less of a hurdle”
£
than air and hotel operators. It’s something
that Alice Linley-Munro, Global Travel
Analyst at Oil Spill Response, is acutely
aware of. “We’ve never been approached by
any rail supplier so my experience is that
they’re not proactive. But, on the flip side,
I’m not sure we have the sort of volume that
they’d be interested in, in order to spur
them on to be proactive.”
Going for the low-hanging fruit is an
obvious buyer strategy, says Raj Sachdave of
Black Box Partnerships. ”Buyers go for what
is going to give the biggest return and that’s
air and then hotels. And rail hasn’t helped
itself either as it’s still very complicated.”
Oil Spill Response spends somewhere
between £8,000-£10,000 annually on rail,
and chiefly on the Southampton-London
route. Nonetheless, the company
encourages staff to book in advance.
”We pitch it to them that it will save them
having to do a laborious expenses claim as
£
£
the cost will be invoiced to us by the TMC,”
says Linley-Munro. Despite this, only four
travellers book through this channel (the
Evolvi tool) with the remainder turning up
on the day and paying.
One glimmer of hope could be the
prospect of pay-as-you-go ticketing, which
would allow buyers to consolidate season
ticket expenditure with rail expenditure and
offer TOCs greater volumes.
Another source of savings is processing
refunds if trains are delayed, as this is finally
being automated and has become less of a
hurdle. How to manage Delay Repay is
appearing on tender documents now and
third-party solutions exist to refund 100% of
compensation to the customer via the TMC
on advance purchase tickets. One such,
Business Travel Compensation, claims a 95%
success rate and says that depending on
policy, the options are for the TMC to hold
the money on account, pass it back to the
client, or reimburse an individual traveller.
“Claims are higher on intercity services as
the cost of those tickets are considerably
more and often the next train may be an
hour away,” says Lee Fortnam, CIO. “For the
TMC it’s an opportunity to do the right thing
for the customer.”
To a large extent, corporates are reliant on
their TMCs to communicate what can be
done to manage rail spend better as they
have the data, but it’s here where there
appears to be a disconnect.
62 THEBUSINESSTRAVELMAG.COM